


Careful Planning

by WilliamTheB



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Episode: s07e07 Conversations With Dead People, Gen, Post-Series, Season/Series 07, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 17:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2119245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WilliamTheB/pseuds/WilliamTheB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Begins after "CWDP" and extends to post-series (not comics continuity). Willow takes what the First/Cassie says to heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Careful Planning

Willow went home after her encounter with “Cassie,” or whatever that thing was. “It’s the Big Bad, Dawn,” she said when she found the ruined girl in the ruined house.

Things to be done. Couldn’t stop now. They needed her to save the world. She pushed it down deep, even took a girlfriend. She touched the bright white of connection for a fleeting moment, and it almost swayed her. Almost. For a while she even believed she was gonna be okay. For a while.

Once that crisis was done, she plotted it out. Not to cause more pain, at least not significantly more. The most selfish act, yes, but only if people know about it. (Right?) She let Kennedy down gently in a South American café, told her that the path of the witch is a lonely one. It was probably going to happen anyway.

She told Buffy and Xander and Dawn and Giles that she was going on a mystical walkabout; she researched one, got Giles’ approval that this was the type that would help her control her powers and control herself, rather than the other type. But she also researched one that people sometimes didn’t come back from. Not because they died, though probably some of them did, but because it’s the kind of study that takes a lifetime, sequestered from the outside world. “I’ll try to come back to you guys, but just in case….” She said her goodbyes to each, tried to think of how to say the unsaid, but somehow the courage eluded her. Of course the courage eluded her; that's why she was doing this.

She told her parents she loved them and was going to help development in South America permanently, and she received plaudits for her dedication to helping the less fortunate; they didn’t ask for any details, or a phone number. Willow considered setting up a program to e-mail them at regular intervals with updates on her life, and maybe one that could respond to things they said, and was pretty sure she could do it convincingly, but decided it probably wouldn’t be necessary.

Finally, when she was content they had stopped watching her, and their lives could function without her, and the Hellmouth on Cleveland settled down from a roar to a growl, she sat alone. She started a spell that would consume her totally, but leave a fake essence floating about for a time, a human lifetime even, just in case anyone was watching.

 _“I stand by my opinion,”_ it had said. _“The world would be a better place if you took a razor blade to your wrist. I can picture it now: candlelight, Indigo Girls playing, a picture of your dead girlfriend on your bloody lap….”_

At the last moment before the spell started to tear her apart, Willow let herself shout: “Tara. If you can hear me, somewhere, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know that wasn’t you. I know it was just an evil thing, pretending to speak for you, and that you would never, and that you would never _want_ me to….  I do.”

She felt her eyes well up with tears and magic. “But it was right.”


End file.
